International Mother Language Day
February 21, 2017
International Mother Language Day (IMLD) has been observed worldwide every year since 2000, February 21. IMLD was proclaimed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999 and in the year 2007 it was formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution declaring 2008 as the International Year of Languages.
International Mother Language Day is observed to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
The date February 21 represents the day in 1952 when students of University of Dhaka, Jagannath College and Dhaka Medical College, demonstrating for the recognition of Bengali as one of the two national languages of East Pakistan, were brutally shot dead by police (then under Pakistan government) near the Dhaka High Court in the capital of present-day Bangladesh.
More than 50 per cent of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken in the world are likely to die out within a few generations, and 96 per cent of these languages are spoken by a mere 4 per cent of the world’s population. Only a few hundred languages have genuinely been given pride of place in education systems and the public domain, and less than a hundred are used in the digital world.
2017 Theme: Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education
Source: www.un.org / www.en.wikipedia.org
Image Credit: www.dailyroabox.com
